Crown of Curses
Area Preloop
Pro/Con: A lot more Cursed Chests

Tech

For the sake of this article, this will cover all aspects of cursed chests as the crowns effects are very simple. The pro & con are on the same line as cursed chests both can benefit and hurt the player, as listed below.

If running any crown, chests have a 1 in 7 chance of becoming cursed.
If running Crown of Curses, chests instead have a 2 in 3 chance of becoming cursed.

Cursed Chests can replace Weapon Chests on levels, and have unique properties.
- Cursed Chests can include weapons from the drop pool from up to 2 areas ahead, which can be seen on the weapons page here. (Link later)
- Cursed Weapons always have a purple cloud emitting from them, indicating that they are cursed. They stay cursed if pulled through a portal, so is a good indicator to watch out for.
- When taking a cursed weapon, it cannot be swapped back for a non-cursed weapon. However, it can be swapped out for other cursed weapons.

While cursed weapons cannot be removed normally, there are a few methods for uncursing.
- Stepping over the crown pedestal will uncurse a weapon. (Does not work if vault guardians are awakened first)
- Taking the Last Wish mutation will uncurse a weapon.
- Entering the Loop Portal will uncurse a weapon.
- Robot can eat a cursed weapon at the cost of 7 HP. If not at 8 HP or above, it will be lethal.
- Chicken cannot throw cursed weapons. If carrying two cursed weapons, her active will be unusable.

If carrying two cursed weapons, ammo drops from enemies have a 50% chance to become a cursed ammo drop instead. (Move to props page later)
- These will give 1.5x more ammo per pickup, and disappear 3 times faster than a normal pickup.
- Once it despawns it will blink rapidly, and cause small explosions that can damage the player.
- These pickups needs to be directly walked over to collect, they will never be attracted to the player.
- This also applies to not being effected by plutonium hunger, nor area portals bringing other pickups to players.
- Eyes telekinesis powers do work adversely, and can suck pickups towards Eyes at his own risk.

If carrying a cursed weapon while entering 4-1, the area will instead become 4-?, the Cursed Crystal Caves. (link later)
- Uncursing weapons before entering caves can avoid it becoming the secret area. However, taking Last Wish upon entering 4-1 specifically will still cause 4-? despite the weapon being uncursed.
- This is one of the most dangerous areas in the game, as there are teleporting enemies that can instakill the player.
- There exists a unique "big cursed chest" only in this area, which gives 3 cursed weapons instead of 1, and includes weapons from 3 weapon pools ahead instead of the normal 2 for cursed.

Strategies

Crown of Curses is the crown that is closest to vanilla gameplay. The only difference is the addition of cursed chests, so this article will instead go over cursed weapon strategies as it's applicable to all crowns, just that it's the most frequent with CoCurses.

The benefit behind cursed weapons is having the chance to see weapons from higher drop pools sooner. Some areas can be trivialized by a good weapon, especially if it's not normally seen at that point within preloop. However while running a cursed weapon, there is always a chance that a preferred non-cursed weapon alternative could drop that the player may have to miss out on depending on their secondary weapon, so when picking up a cursed weapon the player should weigh their odds on whether or not it is worth taking.

Weapons being cursed is not an actively awful downside, just having the potential to occasionally miss out on a better weapon, if the player is only taking good cursed weapons to begin with. The game also gives multiple places to uncurse; within preloop 3-2 and 5-2 vaults are always available, as well as looping to 0-1 L1. Constantly leveling up gives chances to see Last Wish if uncursing is necessary; though it should be noted that going to the 3-? or 5-? areas will skip their respective vault level counterparts.

CoCurses is generally seen as the best crown to take within preloop as the downside can actively be worked around, and increasing chances for better weapons sooner is always welcome. Taking the crown to 1-2 L1 is recommended, as there it can be swapped out for a loop crown, but also happens to be the last area curses can be a benefit for the drop pool, as the last weapons are added on 2-1 L1 which curses gives a chance to see 2 areas earlier.

Cursed weapons are also the conditions for cursed weapon drops/cursed caves, which both give their own benefits at great risk to the player.

Firstly cursed ammo drops, which only appear if carrying two cursed weapons at the time. Carrying just one is usually recommended in case a good weapon drop is seen, however going both can result in an ammo boost from cursed pickups. However they always explode upon despawning so can run a risk to the player of accidentally killing themselves; as they need to be directly walked over in order to collect they can easily be overlooked if tunnel visioning an enemy. Extra awareness should be applied here to avoid accidental damage.

Cursed Crystal Caves (link later) has its own article for its own strategies, however a brief summary is that it's one of the most dangerous areas in the game as laser crystals can teleport and instantly kill the player, and crystal spiders sometimes duplicating upon death can situationally lead to major ammo concerns. The trade-off is a small kill boost for score chasers, but more importantly within preloop guarantees higher leveling before entering the Frozen City, and the cursed ammo chest is a nice boost.

If hoping to avoid the Cursed Crystal Caves, it's a simple matter of uncursing at the 3-2 vault(if started with the crown), or simply skipping the cursed weapon that appears on 3-3. If the cursed weapon gets dragged into the level exit portal then it can safely be picked up on 4-1 without changing the area in any way.

Once the drop pool is filled out by Loop 1 Sewers the main benefit of cursed weapons diminishes. However, cursed weapons can still be utilized if wanting to get cursed ammo pickups still or visit the Cursed Crystal Caves in loop. Note though, once three vaults are visited in a run they will no longer spawn, meaning that once a full mutation set is gotten any character(besides Robot) cannot discard of cursed weapons until looping again, meaning that accidentally picking one up can have potentially run ending consequences - especially when in deeploop.

Character/Mutation Notes:
- Last Wish can be used to uncurse, otherwise mutations shouldn't be taken specifically around cursed weapons.
- If wanting to lean into cursed ammo pickups however, Boiling Veins can go a long way to make up for mistakes.
- Chicken not being able to throw cursed weapons is an active downside to her active.
- However, Eyes & Chicken can bring weapons inbetween levels easily, so if a good weapon drops they can bring it with them until their current weapons get uncursed to swap out with.
- Robot eating cursed weapons for 7 HP gives them less opportunities to use their active, but this is very useful if wanting to change for a desired weapon drop.
- As Fish may hotswap weapons at level start to better benefit from Gun Warrant, he is the most prone to accidentally picking up cursed weapons, while playing this should be accounted for.